ICANN approves .mobi

[Whois-Search]

"On July 11th, 2005, it was announced that mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd. was formed and signed a contract with ICANN to administer the .mobi domain"

http://www.mtldinfo.com

"Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the net's addressing system rubber stamped the .mobi application on 11 July."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4671439.stm

[JEsports]

Stupidest extension i've ever seen in my life ... good luck with that

[jdk]

Just when I thought I've seen it all.

[izopod]

Companies can spend millions of dollars advertising their Domain Name. I can't see too many of them willing to spend that kind of money on a dot mobi, especially when people can type a .biz or a .com (3 letter extension) just as easily into a mobile device. This domain name is also very limiting in that it seems to only apply to mobile devices.

www.Amazon.mobi or www.Amazon.com

ICANN is really starting to lose it...

[mole]

.mobi sites will probably be optimized for mobile phone UI.

[OnSpec]

The information at the bottom is from the mTLD PDF.

Seems that the mobi jv are holding all the cards on this one. In the impending land rush, what do you think of the chances of a small business person picking up "maps", "music", "lyrics", "songs", "weather", "hotels" etc. are?

Although I must say that I am comforted by the fact that "they will reinvest a significant portion of the JV’s earnings back into the JV to fund further innovation." :clown:


"Auctioning names descriptive of a field (e.g., maps.mobi, travel.mobi). In principle, auctions are an effective and transparent method of allocating scarce resources: The onus is on the bidders to price the asset, and because the process is visible to all parties, the final allocation is less likely to be subjected to legal challenges. However, that said, auctioning is not without its challenges. For instance, access to information is often not symmetrical in nature, in that some entities are better equipped than others to find information in a timely manner. A decision to auction second-level names that bestow significant market advantage on the winning bidder without regard for this concern could be unfair. The Mobi JV will have to ensure that news of the auction and information about procedures are well-publicized in advance of the actual auction. For another, auctions — with an implied competition
among bidders — often tend to maximize revenues for the auctioneer. Given that the those conducting the auction will also be economic actors in the same industry, this may be a rather difficult situation, although they have stated that they will reinvest a significant portion of the JV’s earnings back into the JV to fund further innovation."

[izopod]

.mobi sites will probably be optimized for mobile phone UI.

Most of the big .com's are doing that now....

Maybe this is one of those situations where semantics is coming into play. Europe uses "Mobiles", and here in the US, we use "Cell Phones". So for Europeans, "Dot Mobi" might not be that much of a stretch. However here in the states, it looks and sounds horrible (People said that of ".biz", but at least it was being used on CNN, et al.) Not the least of which it's a 4 character domain name. The golden rule in the US is that it MUST be three.

I guess... Best of Luck to Dot Mobi and Dot Jobs!!!!

[nitronet]

Sounds like .crap to me.

[JEsports]

people might type in di*k.mobi for entertainment purposes ... other than that it sounds really stupid. Do you say "Call me on my cell phone" or "Call me on my mobile phone"? Everyone i know says "cell"

[Kishin]

I believe this is also a Asian term,I know many people in India use it,Big market there possibly for this extension.

[Blarian]

Very interesting to say the least. Reminds me of "Moby" from "Moby Dick." I can't imagine ever taking this seriously as an option when I'm choosing a TLD...

[Poker]

not impressed...if someone wants thier site optimized for mobile phones just put it on another ext or in a subdirectory or another .com domain entirely... they are trying to create a demand that does not exist...

[GodBlessYou]

.Stupid would have been a better choice .

[mole]

they are trying to create a demand that does not exist...

The World Wide Web did not exist 15 years ago.

[Poker]

The World Wide Web did not exist 15 years ago.

Actually it did.
Back to your point, the web filled an evolving need, this new ext. does not.

[Dale Hubbard]

Another crazy ICANN move IMHO. Who is going to buy into that? There are still a lot of GREAT names available at the smaller ccTLDs at www.idotz.net -- sooner buy into that than ... ".mobi"???

[NameYourself]

Such an odd extension?? It's like using .busi for businesses and corporate sites instead of the .com... whoops i mean .biz

Lets face it, COM is KING. Only time will tell whether or not every wireless customer starts automatically using .mobi on their phones when accessing the web. Usually first instincts in these cases are right, and when I first heard about this four letter, vowel ending extension my first instinct was big flop. Wouldn't it just be easier for websites to take on the responsibility of automatically figuring out what kind of device/browser is accessing the website and automatically return the right display for that type of device? I'm no expert in this technology but that seems like the answer rather than having a new extension for each type of device accessing the web.

[MediaHound]

Wouldn't it just be easier for websites to take on the responsibility of automatically figuring out what kind of device/browser is accessing the website and automatically return the right display for that type of device? I'm no expert in this technology but that seems like the answer rather than having a new extension for each type of device accessing the web.

Of course

I'm not going to give the whole list we use, but here is a partial list & an example of how it is done:

## DETECT WAP
if (   ereg(  "text/vnd.wap.wml",strtolower($HTTP_ACCEPT)  )   ){
  include"/home/your/wap/index.wml";
  exit;
}
switch (true){
  case ereg(  "wap"                          , strtolower ($HTTP_USER_AGENT) ):
  case ereg(  "wml"                          , strtolower ($HTTP_USER_AGENT) ):
  case ereg(  "phone"                        , strtolower ($HTTP_USER_AGENT) ):
  case ereg(  "Ericsson"                     , $HTTP_USER_AGENT ):
  case ereg(  "Sony"                         , $HTTP_USER_AGENT ):
  case ereg(  "Nokia"                        , $HTTP_USER_AGENT ):
  case ereg(  "Panasonic"                    , $HTTP_USER_AGENT ):
  include"/home/your/wap/index.wml";
    exit;
}

hope this helps someone

[Ed30]

Another cack extension - just what we need

[Dale Hubbard]

Mediahound has it in one